loss
by hitokiri-tokiya
Summary: Blood and death. A tragedy.


(This story just popped in to my head one day and I wrote and finished it right then. But this one is the revised version, made after a few of my friends have read it. I hope you guys'll enjoy reading this despite the tragic subject matter... I'm really hoping you guys'll be kind enough to send reviews as well. Jaa, yorushiku onegaishimasu!)  
  
(disclaimer: FoR and its characters do not belong to me.)  
  
LOSS  
  
He was too late.  
  
Slowly, he falls to his knees before her dead body. Very gently, he takes her into his arms and embraces her, tightly.  
  
She was very cold.  
  
A mixture of intense grief and sorrow, and of burning rage rises within him. It opens up into such a deep feeling of loss that it felt like death in itself.  
  
But he holds back his tears. He would mourn her later.  
  
For now, it seems he wants only one thing.  
  
Blood.  
  
"You killed her." He says this in a deceptively calm, cool voice.  
  
The man who had taken her life continues to just stand there, quietly. There was sadness in his eyes, yes, but there was no remorse. He was not sorry for what he had done.  
  
He looks up at this man with a deadly, icy glare.  
  
"Naze, Raiha. NAZE DA." He was answered simply, "Fate."  
  
He feels it then. The first poisonous touch of hatred.  
  
And he welcomes it.  
  
"We were destined to meet in battle, as I have told her," the Uruha fighter explains. "A battle in which only the stronger one. will live."  
  
He sees the cherished triumph in the Raijin-wielder's eyes, and feels an immense loathing and disgust for him. Now the hatred that had touched him, suddenly has him completely and wholly in its grasp.  
  
Carefully, almost reverently, he lowers her body onto the hard ground.  
  
"I love her." Slowly, he stands up. "I was so stupid not to have known it."  
  
He smiles perhaps a bit bitterly, as memories of her, surprisingly sweet, come to him. Of which, most precious to him was her smile. Her cute, playfully innocent smile.  
  
"Now that her heart is dead, her warmth gone. how will I ever be able to quench this burning need for her touch? How will I ever be able to repay her with love she deserves in kind?"  
  
The Ensui was out in the next breath. He forms the deadly ice sword out of the very waters from the air.  
  
"Die now, Raiha."  
  
And with a speed few can follow, he attacks.  
  
Calmly, the Raijin-wielder raises his right arm. "You will not defeat me so easily." He summons forth the power of his madougu.  
  
A terrific lightning bolt erupts, passing cleanly through the Ensui master's body before he could even close in. It rips his body apart into thousands, perhaps millions of tiny water droplets.  
  
Water Shadow!  
  
That was Raiha's last thought. After which, he knew only darkness.  
  
He never even knew where the strike came from. It was very clean and impossibly quick, done with a skill nearly impossible to equal. He was dead moments before he realized it.  
  
His body falls forward and strikes the ground soundly. His head rolls off a few feet to the left before it comes to a dead stop. Darkly rich, red blood pours forth from what had once been his neck.  
  
The Ensui master just stands there, quietly. He looks at the now headless man's dead body and feels. nothing. There was no satisfaction, no sense of triumph for him.  
  
Blood slowly drips off the cold ice blade, leaving it spotlessly clean and as clear as crystal.  
  
He turns away now and walks back towards her dead body. He drops the Ensui along the way but he does not notice this.  
  
He picks her up and holds her as close to his heart as he can.  
  
He feels his body start to tremble uncontrollably as he allows the sorrow he had held back to manifest itself, and his vision is blurred as the tears come.  
  
He walks with his most precious in his arms, but with no direction or purpose. Of what use are those things anyway if you have lost your reason to live?  
  
From above them, the stars continue to look down upon the desolate scene from their places up in the heavens. But they are indifferent watchers. The sight of all that blood does not affect them. 


End file.
